Waltz of Her Life

January 1983

Linda lay on her Murphy bed, taking a nap after a grueling day. It was late afternoon on a gray, bone-chilling drizzly day, and while she normally turned the television on and vegetated in front of it, today she could not accomplish even that. She lived on the bottom floor of a row house on top of Mt. Holyoke, overlooking the city. The place was as small as the cottage where at Little Egyptian. It was so small, the bed came out of a wall, the way she'd seen in old comedy movies.

Someone had painted a forest mural on the other wall. "Oh, we didn't have nothing to do with that," the landlord said when she moved in, "Some guy who was an art student did it." The kitchen was a bar, in front of which she'd dropped two bar stools. When the Murphy bed was up in the wall, she pushed her fifties style swivel chairs and her round, rattan, glass-top table in the spot where they had been. A small bookshelf held her books and personal knickknacks. She knew it wasn't much, but she loved her little nest on the hill.

She had been dozing in and out of sleep, still in college one moment, seven years old and at a family barbecue the next, and making love to Seth in the cottage after that. Three years at the Dream lab had taught her to recognize a dream and go with it. She kept laughing as she and Seth went at it hot and heavy on her little bed while yards away Mr. and Mrs. Glienke were in their den watching Humphrey Bogart on television.

The sound of a loud motorcycle jarred Linda out of la-la land and when she sat up abruptly, she scared Peaches, her ginger tabby cat. "Aw jeez," she said, recognizing him.

She was still wearing one of her double knit white pantsuits but not her starchy cap.

She'd placed it atop one of the stereo speakers. The motorcycle engine cut off. She put on her slippers. Grabbing a jacket from the coat rack near the door, she stepped outside into the moist cold, gazing down the walkway.

"Hey there," Seth said, as he held his helmet and sauntered up the steps. The drizzle drops glistened on his fierce looking leather jacket with the wide lapels. "How's my best girl?"

To be genial, Linda stood on tiptoe and gave him a quick peck on the lips when he reached her. Yet she was still annoyed. "I'm fine," she said. "Let's get inside, it's nasty out here."